If the dark red brick exterior, striped canopies and flat roof of the new McDonald's in Mechanicville don't catch your eye, the stainless steel "water screen" just inside the front entrance will.

Standing about 7 feet high and several feet wide, the narrow screen carries water from top to bottom and back again, letting customers experience the sight and sounds of a waterfall in a fast-food restaurant.

It's a bit of Zen in the world of the Golden Arches.

Elsewhere, Italian granite tiles in shades of brown fill the walls. The cream-colored, speckled countertops are made of Corian. Stainless steel pendent lights are suspended above tables. High-backed booths with cushioned headrests and even cushier seats offer a place to sit (or you can choose bistro-style tables with seats made of aluminum).

There are two plasma TV screens and wireless Internet access, though unlike some restaurants and coffee shops, the WiFi isn't free. Art hangs on the walls, including an oversized reproduction of a 1914 color postcard depicting the D&H railroad depot in Mechanicville.

The new restaurant, which opened Dec. 18, cost franchisee Roger Grout and the company about $1.5 million. It replaces another McDonald's on the same location on Routes 4 and 32 that was demolished in September.

"Upscale but not pretentious" is the response Grout hopes customers will have.

The changes are part of a concept called "Forever Young" that McDonald's has been rolling out over the past year as the chain known for Big Macs and fries tries to remain up-to-date in an age of digital technology and growth in the number of people who eat out regularly.

By the end of 2006, more than 6,000 of the 13,700 franchises and company-owned McDonald's in the United States had incorporated some aspects of the redesign into their buildings, said Mary Scanlan, spokeswoman for the McDonald's Owners and Operators of the Capital Region. Others will be redesigned on a case-by-case basis.

Mechanicville is the first in this region to be rebuilt from the ground up based on the concept.

Four of the 75 other McDonald's in the region--which stretches from Catskill to Warrensburg and Bennington, Vt., to Gloversville--have remodeled their interiors. The restaurant on Wolf Road in Colonie, for instance, has a gas-powered fireplace.

The new look comes as McDonald's, based in Oak Brook, Ill., continues efforts to appeal to more people by broadening the menu choices, opening earlier in the morning and closing later at night. Many stay open 24 hours, including 22 in the Capital Region.

In late 2005, more than 650 McDonald's in the Northeast started selling Newman's Own Organic coffee; last year, the company said it would offer Asian salads at all of its U.S. locations. McDonald's--the biggest fast-food restaurant in the world in terms of sales--is still experimenting with ways to eliminate trans fat from its cooking oil without changing the taste of its signature fries.

The company, which has more than 31,000 locations worldwide, has rebounded over the past four years from what had been declining sales.

McDonald's announced Jan. 17 that its fourth-quarter same-store sales rose 6.3 percent worldwide and 5.9 percent in the United States. It forecast fourth-quarter earnings of $1 per share, beating the average analyst expectation of 58 cents per share, according to Thomson First Call. The company earned $2.6 billion in net income in 2005 on total sales of $20.4 billion, according to hoovers.com.

Grout, who started working at McDonald's as a teenager in Queensbury in the late 1960s and bought his first franchises in 1994, has experienced various re-branding campaigns.

Just five years ago, for instance, the company sought a retro, 1950s feel that emphasized the original colors: red roof, white building and yellow trim. Grout repainted four of his five locations, which cost $8,000 to $15,000 each. He didn't touch the Mechanicville site, however, because it needed extensive work.

Built in 1977, the restaurant was constructed a year before drive-through lanes became standard at McDonald's. There wasn't enough room on the corner lot to fully accommodate a drive-through so it was crammed in with narrow turning lanes. Cars occasionally got stuck on the curbs.

"I actually had to have a tow truck come and unhook them off," Grout said. "I can't tell you the number of customers that damaged their cars."

Grout would have rather built new on the opposite corner of the shopping plaza so he could keep the former restaurant open during construction. But he said Eckerd Pharmacy invoked a "line of sight" restriction in its lease at the plaza.

So the former restaurant closed Sept. 9 and was demolished. Grout said "there were tears, there were stories" because the McDonald's had been a gathering spot. After a tornado struck the city on Memorial Day 1998, for instance, the restaurant was one of the few places that still had electricity. People met with their insurance adjusters there.

The new restaurant has 64 seats, 36 fewer than the old building. Thus far, Grout hasn't seen a big increase in drive-through business, which was the biggest motivation for the redesign. Customers are still getting acquainted with the new look inside.

"This place hadn't changed in 30 years," said Dave Bahan, who joins a couple of other guys for coffee in the morning. "This is what Mechanicville needs. They're trying to reinvent the town, and this is a good start."

His buddy, Ronald Montanari, likes the TVs but misses some of the creature comforts of the old place.